I'm fairly convinced sites do this because someone there is sick of having to moderate their comment section, but doesn't have the buy-in to get rid of it entir

I'm fairly convinced sites do this because someone there is sick of having to moderate their comment section, but doesn't have the buy-in to get rid of it entirely. So instead they stick a bunch of ads above it, hide it behind a button, etc. in hopes of annoying people into not commenting.